Tag Archives: Oscars

Our best and worst at the Oscars

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OK, so we can all probably agree that the worst thing at the Oscars wasn’t on the red carpet — it was Seth MacFarlane’s tone-deaf jokes about Quvenzhane Wallis and other celebs that fell flat. Well, maybe you did like him, or even Jennifer Lawrence winning for the godawful Silver Linings Playbook.

Well, whatever you thought of the ceremony, here’s what our fashionista, J. Denton Bricker, thought of the best and worst ladies’ wear of the evening. Feel free to disagree or add your own.

BEST

DARREN LE GALLO, AMY ADAMSJESSICA CHASTAINNAOMI WATTS Amy Adams — The shape of her pale blue Oscar de la Renta was dazzling with every shot from the front row.

Jessica Chastain — The shimmering Art Deco design (also from Armani Prive) conjured images of Old Hollywood, including Marilyn.

Naomi Watts — This sharp silver number from Armani Prive looked like nothing else on the red carpet and seemed to catch color.

REESE WITHERSPOONWILLIAM GOLDENBERG, SANDRA BULLOCK

Reese Witherspoon — The form-fitting cobalt gown by Louis Vuitton was sleek and classic with a little edge. Her vintage locks were the best of the evening.

Sandra Bullock — Elegant, effortless and breathtaking in Ellie Saab, who wouldn’t want to receive an award from her?

WORST

MELISSA MCCARTHYANNE HATHAWAYHelena-Bonham-Carter

Melissa McCarthy — The effort was there, but the grey blob of a dress from David Meister just didn’t work.

Anne Hathaway — The pale pink Prada fit Anne awkwardly and accentuated her breasts in all the wrong, pointed ways.

Helena Bonham Carter — Known for her eccentric tastes, the spooky Vivienne Westwood was just wrong for the Oscar red carpet.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

The Oscar scorecard: Your cheat sheet

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ARGO

‘Argo’ is the unlikely frontrunner for best picture.

For years, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has tried to add some drama to the Oscarcast — hard, since by the time Oscar night rolls around, so many other groups have presented their awards, few surprises remain.

Well, this year, they finally may have achieved their goal — if for the wrong reasons.

With nine films nominated for best picture, but only five nominated for best director, there were bound to be some shut-outs, but the snubs of directors Ben Affleck (Argo), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Top Hooper (Les Miserables) and Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) — all prior Oscar winners — in favor or two newcomers sent predictions into a tailspin. Add to that the continuing success of Argo in best picture competitions (Golden Globes and BAFTAs; the Screen Actors Guild’s equivalent, best ensemble) and Affleck’s own victory as director, not only is Argo the unlikely frontrunner for best picture, there is no frontrunner for best director.

So what’s gonna happen?

That’s what the Academy hoped you’d ask.

When the world goes upside down like this, almost anything is possible — especially in the best actress category, which is wide open, and best supporting actor, which looks like a two-man race but which could allow a spoiler. Here are your best bets to win the office Oscar pool (the Oscars will be presented Sunday night, broadcast on ABC):

NOTE: If you wanna challenge yourself with Oscar trivia from me, I’ll be hosting a show Sat., Feb. 23 on Facebook’s Hollywood Babylon fan site starting at 1 p.m. Central!

Continue reading “The Oscar scorecard: Your cheat sheet” »

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

Holding gold — an Oscar in Dallas

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RobertEmery

Attendee Robert Emery thanks all the little people.

Yesterday afternoon, I got to pretend I was a big Hollywood actor.

No, I didn’t go back into the closet and marry my female agent and adopt kids. I got to meet Oscar, the foot-tall statuette that everyone will be coveting on Sunday night. It was part of #OscarRoadTrip, a three-week cross-country tour where two very attractive folks take Oscar No. 3111 (they are all numbered) around the U.S., letting folks hold it for a few seconds and get their picture taken with a naked man who they didn’t meet on a cruise.

It was pretty fun.

The event, hosted by the USA Film Festival and the Angelika Film Center, was well-attended if a bit crowded and hectic, but it takes just a second to take the statue from the muscle-bound security guard, get your pic snapped and hand it off. No one dashed. One guy showed up in a tuxedo (I suspect he’ll use it on his Match.com profile to deceive prospective dates), but most of us didn’t look like Oscar winners — we looked like movie fans. And we were.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

The Oscar noms: Tons of surprises

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has been trying desperately to shake up their Oscar nominations, and they finally succeeded. In what was generally considered one of the strongest movie years in a decade, the nominations this morning had tons of surprises — many exactly of the kind they wanted, including a powerhouse appearance by indie hit Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Still, many of the predicted frontrunners did expectedly well, with Lincoln scoring the most nominations (12, including three for acting — tied for the most ever acting noms from a Steven Spielberg-directed film), followed closely by my favorite film of the year, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, which, with 11 nods, has the most ever for a film that didn’t receive a single acting nomination. Also, the dreadful Silver Linings Playbook did well, largely via the push by Harvey Weinstein, despite being the worst movie of 2012. Bernie and Cloud Atlas were completely snubbed, as was Matthew McConaughey, who did four films with some buzz last year.

The biggest upsets were in the direction category, with four of the frontrunners — former Oscar winners Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper, Quentin Tarantino and Ben Affleck — all being passed over for inferior work from David O. Russell for SLP, and Beasts‘ Ben Zeitlin in his film debut.

Some good surprises include gay filmmaker David France’s AIDS movie How to Survive a Plague nominated for best documentary feature and The Simpsons‘ cartoon The Longest Daycare snagging a nom for animated short.

All the nominations after the jump.

Continue reading “The Oscar noms: Tons of surprises” »

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

Handicapping the Oscar nominations

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The Oscar noms come early this year, and once again as many as 10 films may be up for best picture. But which ones? And how many?

Here I have a handicapping, in descending order, of the most likely nominees in all the categories. After the nominations come out Thursday morning, check to see how well we (and you) did. My picks are below.

Continue reading “Handicapping the Oscar nominations” »

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

Gain the edge on the Oscar pool with shorts

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In this week’s issue, I’ll be giving my predictions for the Oscars, which are on Sunday. The secret to winning the office pool? Seeing all the obscure films that no one known how to vote on.

Well, it’s not a secret how to do it — just track down the shorts programs.

For the past several years, the Magnolia Theatre has hosted screenings of the live action shorts and animated shorts — usually just for one week. This year, though, they’ve extended it — you can catch the films all weekend, up to and including Oscar night. The slate of films — the five nominated for best live action, the five nominated for best animated, and two additional animated shorts — are a hodgepodge of comic and sentimental.

But there’s an even rarer opportunity tonight only: You can see four of the five documentary shorts at the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff. The docs have never been part of the Magnolia’s lineup, but the Texas Theatre has run them a few nights this week; tonight is the final chance to see them, at 7 p.m.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

Some observations on my Oscar experience

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Even though I’ve written a book about the Oscars, I’ve never actually attended any of their events, or come much closer than watching the show when it airs.

That changed earlier this week, when I attended the announcement ceremony from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Hollywood. I had to wake up at 3 a.m. to get there for the media breakfast and be in place for the announcements, which took place at 5:38 a.m. (so that they were in time for the East Coast broadcasts of the morning news shows). It was a surprisingly lively event. Here are some of my thoughts at it was happening.

• The lobby is covered in red carpet — I guess that saves a lot of time laying it out every 15 seconds so celebs know where to go.

• The security is tight but the people are friendly. This is L.A. after all — you can never be sure who’s some journo from Dallas and who might be a segment producer for Access Hollywood. Or Harvey Weinstein’s personal assistant.

• An old man at my table at the media breakfast just got his foot wrapped on my bag’s strap, which was pressed next to my chair. “I’m gonna kill myself on that! Putting it under the table is better.” “Picking up your feet when you walk isn’t a bad idea, either,” I mutter. He then sat down and nearly took the table cloth with him when it gets caught on his foot. What’s the common denominator here? My bag or this guy?

• Some folks are wearing swag from previous Oscars. I am not among them. I decide this is a good thing, because then people might want to talk to you about it and I’m just a faker who bought my swag anyway.

• The breakfast looks busy and well-attended to me, but a few veterans of the event note that there are “fewer and fewer every year… They’re all going to Sundance.”

• Small world: I just bumped into Amy, a publicist for ABC. I had met her only the day before, at a friend’s house — she is the girlfriend of his roommate. She does a mean Madonna impersonation, though not here.

• I’m surprised that more people are not talking about the Oscars themselves, or even the movie business — handicapping who they think the nominees will be, what films they expect to get snubbed. I wonder if they are playing it close to the vest or really have become so bored by it this is just an inconvenient assignment. Or maybe they are afraid to look too anxious and fan-boy crazy.

• There is one exception. A guy I’m sitting near apparently has a gig as a handicapper of the visual effects category. He says Hugo isn’t feeling the love and neither is Harry Potter — those will likely be passed over. The surprise nominee, he predicts, may be Real Steel, though he wonders if it and Transformers 3 — two robot movies — will both get nominated. He does predict Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the frontrunner to win “as compensation for not nominating Andy Serkis.” Captain America also seems a lock…

• Only he’s wrong. Yes, Rise and Steel both get nods, but so does Transformers and so do Hugo and Potter. Captain America is overlooked.

• After so much cool, a few minutes before the velvet rope is removed to allow folks into the theater, and without any public announcement, the “first admit” passholders magically start lining up like airplane travelers jockeying for the shortest wait. They care…

• Finally, the ceremony is over and folks are pouring over the press release, looking not just at what movies got nods, but who. They are not all journalists here — some probably are Harvey Weinstein’s assistants, or at least folks from corporate who have bosses in the running. Or personal grudges. “No, he didn’t make the list,” one says into a cell phone. “Ohh, she got nominated — he’ll be pissed!” another observes. Half of show business is business…

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

Feedback • 11.18.11

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Double standard

Since the gay community and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation throw such fits when we feel we have been insulted or slighted (Wanda Sykes starring in a commercial chastising a group of teens using the term “so gay,” Blake Shelton coming under fire for anti-gay comments and most recently Brett Ratner resigning as producer of the Oscars for using the word “fag” in what was deemed a derogatory way), I am surprised and ultimately disappointed in the double standard the Dallas Voice borrows to do business their way.

In the article “Driver’s Seat” (Dallas Voice, Nov. 11), staff writer Rich Lopez actually quotes Drew Ginsburg as saying “Well, if you buy a SAAB, you’re retarded.”

First of all, I cannot believe he would use the quote and secondly, and more significantly, I cannot believe that a proofreader or the editor allowed this to go to print.

One would expect a certain level of professionalism, sensitivity, maturity and social responsibility to have prevented this from happening — not to mention human decency.

I hope others speak up about this, if only to raise awareness that the Voice needs to be more responsible and less hypocritical of what they don’t approve of, and ultimately take more caution in the future about what goes out the public. This is irresponsible journalism and further proof that Ginsberg is a jerk.

Geoffrey Bruce, via email

…………………….

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—  Michael Stephens

Pink Noise: The Dallas Voice Podcast

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In this week’s episode, Rich Lopez and I talked about former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert’s anti-gay tweet, the Oscars, Perez Hilton at SXSW, Equality Texas Lobby Day, the GSA controversy in Corpus Christi, and more.

—  John Wright

Queer Music News: Singer Rufus Wainwright is now a daddy; James Franco is no Cher

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• I had no idea singer Rufus Wainwright was in want of a family. And now he has one — in that modern family kinda way. This was posted on his website this past Saturday. And this doesn’t makes us feel icky like another celeb and his new baby.

Feb 18, 2011

For Immediate Release:

Darling daughter Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen was born on February 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California to proud parents Lorca Cohen, Rufus Wainwright and Deputy Dad Jorn Weisbrodt. The little angel is evidently healthy, presumably happy and certainly very very beautiful.

Daddy #1 would like to offer everyone a digital cigar and welcome the little lady in with a French phrase from his favorite folk song, A La Claire Fontaine : “Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, jamais je ne t’oublierai.”

CORRECTION: In many of the articles announcing the birth of Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, Lorca Cohen is characterized as “the surrogate.” Of course, she is no such thing. She did not carry the child for someone else. Lorca Cohen is the mother of the baby and Rufus Wainwright is the father.

• Towleroad posted this track of James Franco’s version of Cher’s “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” from Burlesque, which was to be an apparent gag drag performance for this weekend’s Oscars. Now, it isn’t — and that’s a good thing.

—  Rich Lopez